


Bridge Burning

by AlleiraDayne



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Endverse, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:36:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27964670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlleiraDayne/pseuds/AlleiraDayne
Summary: Y/N seeks out Dean Winchester at Camp Chitaqua, hoping not only to save herself but the world.
Relationships: EndVerse Dean Winchester/Reader, Endverse Dean Winchester/You
Kudos: 8





	Bridge Burning

**Author's Note:**

> For @negan-luciles-tblr's SPN Secret Santa Fic Exchange, I was @bucky--barnes' Secret Santa. From their Endverse!Dean prompt, my mind spun a quick plot with some angst and fluff. Thank you to @amanda-teaches and @atc74 for the beta’s. Hope you enjoy!

Time. Ceaseless in its march. And all too often imperceptible. It bore us all onward, forever hurtling towards an inevitable ending. One grand finale, then... nothing. Seemed anticlimactic no matter how she cut it. Go out with guns blazing, then die. Or fall asleep and never wake up. Neither did the world any justice.

And yet, when  _ the _ ending had come for Earth itself, something… strange had happened. That nothingness stalled, lingering at the edges of the universe. Time, it seemed, had slowed ever so slightly, but for what reason, Y/N did not know.

To her, time had always moved painfully slow, even slower since the end had begun. Maybe because that final moment had never come to pass. Days filled with endless waves of death had turned into weeks of slaughter, then months of destruction. Society had collapsed. Eventually, Croatoan had become the new normal.

A fate worse than death.

How many times had she prayed for the end? She had lost count after the first year. Then, she had forgotten how long she had fought. Finally, she had forgotten why.

Until yesterday.

Voices echoed through the empty city streets and drew her attention up from the darkest depths of her mind. Close, at last. Her feet screamed out for relief at the mere hint. Despite the soreness, Y/N picked up her pace, trotting towards the sounds of salvation. 

As she neared the camp, every step, every breath, every beat of her racing heart counted down her final moments. She would have no time left by the next morning, she knew. Unless someone could help her. Unless someone could save her.

And the world.

If anyone left on Earth could do that, it had to be him. At least, she hoped it was him.

An intersection neared, covered in overgrowth, and abandoned vehicles littered the street. A sign in the center read “Checkpoint” with an arrow pointing east. The sounds of life, of actual real, live breathing human beings filled her head with so many possibilities, she sprinted the final yards and rounded the corner.

A large barricade blocked the street. Beyond stood a makeshift fortress; lookouts paced the steel walkways between towers. Near the gate, a singular structure stood sporting a turret, unmanned.

When she approached the gate, a guard popped up over the wall and shouted, “Stop! You can’t come in here.”

Y/N squinted in the early morning sunlight, her hand an ineffective shade at her forehead. “I’m looking for someone. A friend. I… need his help.”

“We’re not admitting anyone unaccompanied by a camp member,” the man stated. “Too risky. You might be infected.”

She snorted a derisive scoff. Not that he would know. Or understand. “Look, I’m not infected. I get it, though. I have no proof. Can you at least tell my friend I’m here?”

The man leaned below the wall, his voice muted by the barricade. When he appeared once more, he said, “I can’t make any promises they’re here, but if they are, I’ll pass along the message.”

“Tell Dean Winchester that Y/N Y/L/N could use a hand,” she stated.

Two more men popped up above the wall like little toy soldiers. But, they brandished very real and very dangerous rifles directly at her head. She raised her hands to her shoulders, as slow and measured as her steps back towards the intersection.

“What do you want with him?!” the first man barked.

“I…” she hesitated, stalled for the right words. “I need his help. And I think he needs mine.”

A long moment passed where the three men remained still as stone, their guns trained on her. But then, the first soldier led his fellows down to the gate and opened it. Wheels scraped on pockmarked asphalt, pulling the entry apart. It stopped only when it was wide enough to admit a small army.

Or a car.

The men appeared around the left edge and crept towards her, guns yet drawn. “I swear, I’m not infected,” she insisted.

“Shut up,” the first man spat as he neared. At twenty feet, he withdrew a pair of zip ties and a black canvas bag. “Put these on,” he ordered.

Y/N did as instructed, first securing the ties around her wrists. Then darkness consumed her, the canvas bag blocking out the sun as she pulled it over her head. Heavy boots thumped on the cement, drawing near until a rough jerk of the zip tie tightened it. She sucked in a breath against the sharp sting of plastic slicing into her skin but tempered her response to silence.

"Walk."

The world pitched as one of the men shoved her forward, and she stumbled. Vicious hands grasped her by the back of the arms, hauled her up to her feet, and started her ahead once more. After a hundred paces, the grind of metal on cement sounded behind her until a defining crunch sealed the gate.

The men jostled her through a maze of turns and twists, seemingly walking her in circles about the camp. Similar smells and sounds passed numerous times before the pattern shifted. Sunlight warmed the canvas bag unbearably hot until a sudden burst of cool air consumed her through a door thrown wide open.

"She approached the gate, sir. No insignia, no affiliations."

No one responded, but Y/N guessed leading security personnel stood somewhere in the room. Clean air, the cleanest she had breathed in years, filled her nose. The tiniest hint of alcohol teased at her senses but disappeared as soon as she smelled it.

Wheels scraped along the floor, and the brutes grasping her arms shoved her down into a chair as it hit the backs of her knees. Then those same thumping boots rolled away from her, like distant thunder. Whispers in the darkness barely penetrated the canvas, conversations starting and stopping. A heated debate transpired, but too distant and too quiet to discern about what the men argued.

Brilliant white light blinded Y/N as the bag tore from her face. She squinted into the white glare, eyes stinging and blurry with tears. The guards from the gate came into focus beside her, the leader holding the bag in his clenched fist. All three men simply stared at her, no malice or anger coloring their demeanor. A million questions and none tumbled through her scrambling mind until the heavy step of a single pair of boots snared her attention.

Dean Winchester strode into view, armed to the teeth. As if it was just another day in the camp, he turned to Y/N expectantly, only to freeze the moment their stares met. In that liminal moment, that fraction of a second, decades of a forgotten friendship swallowed them whole. But then that connection, that understanding passed as quickly as it had come, and Dean turned to the first guard.

"Cut those ties and get her some food and water."

Nobody moved. The air stiffened, suddenly too thick to breathe. The guards stared Dean down as though he'd spoken a foreign language. After a beat, Dean barked, "Now! And find her a room!"

Two of the guards startled into motion, attending to her immediately, but their little pack leader remained still. "Sir, she hasn't been tested. She hasn't gone through any evaluations. We don't even know who—"

"Did I ask you for your opinion, Mount?"

Mount's protest died on his tongue at that, but his glare darkened all the same. "No, sir."

"Then you will do as I ordered."

While safely ignored for the moment, Y/N had observed and noted every gesture, marked their body language indelibly, and memorized every word spoken. She had known that Dean led the camp in Chitaqua, but she had not learned about Mount. A miscalculation she would not repeat.

"Dean," she started, "it's so good to see—"

"You have your orders," Dean interjected. "Go. I've got work to do." With that, he stormed from the room, and it was only then that Y/N saw she had been dragged into a tiny motel lobby. He headed through the vestibule doors, then disappeared around the corner.

No. She had fought relentlessly for weeks to reach the camp. She had risked everything, her life, and the lives of millions that had survived for so long. Why would he avoid her? He had remembered it all, same as she. Why, then, after all those years, would he refuse to talk to her but allow her to stay in the camp?

_ You sent Sam to his death. Remember that? And you convinced Dean it would work out. _

"On your feet."

Mount's order startled her from her nightmare memory, and she stood while the other guard cut her bindings loose. Dried blood had crusted on the insides of her wrists and coated the bindings. The guard startled and dropped the ties, and all three men leaped back as the plastic bounced to the floor.

"You, bring those to the lab for testing," Mount ordered as he pointed to the guard before her, then turned to the other by his side. "And you, give her what he said. I've got shit to do and don't have time to babysit strays." His glare boiled with contempt as he stared at her, but Y/N wasn't about to avert her eyes.

Then he strode through the motel lobby and out the front door in a clamoring of gear and stomping boots. And that was the last she would see of security guard Mount.

Y/N turned back to the other guards with a nervous smile and said, "Looks like it's just us then."

The guard nearest her picked up the bloody ties, then motioned for the door, no response nor humor to be found in him at all. Probably wouldn't know a joke if it jumped up and bit him in the ass. He sidestepped her for the door, and she sighed a long breath as she fell in behind him. The remaining guard took up the rear, no words on his tongue either. Silently, she trudged through the motel lobby doors and into the blinding sun. Resolve stiffened her spine as she determined that she would find Dean the second she got the chance.

But that chance eluded her. After the guards had taken her to a small unoccupied lean-to, she had food and water in hand in short order. Ravished, she wolfed down the small field ration, the familiar half-sated hunger easing her stomach. Left to her own devices, Y/N then ventured into the camp.

To her great surprise, she found Dean within minutes. But he was preoccupied, meeting with a small group of camp members. Y/N watched from afar as Dean nodded and smiled, his caring nature shining brighter than the noon sun.

Noon.

She had wasted half the day. If she stalled any longer, looking for the perfect moment to get him alone, they were doomed. But a chance presented itself as the group around Dean began to disperse. He glanced in her direction as she strode towards him, though he tried, and failed, to hide it. He had busied himself with organizing resources on a table, his back to her. When she neared, she said, "Dean?"

"Yes?"

He had not turned to face her, focused on the table and its clutter. Y/N stepped closer. "I need to tell you something. It's about the—"

"Here." Dean wheeled about with two large military-grade water containers and held them out to her. "Fill these up at the north end of camp and bring them to the mess. We need to boil it all before dinner."

Stunned, Y/N gaped, her every thought obliterated. He had hardly even looked at her again, and instead, turned back to the table the moment she relieved him of the containers. A shake of her head gathered her wits. "This is really important. I have—"

"Impala, what's your twenty, over?"

Dean ripped his radio from his hip and responded. "This is Impala. I'm up at logistics taking care of resources for dinner."

"We have a situation in the residence tents."

"Son of a…" he hissed before responding. "Can't you handle it?"

"I think you should see this."

He growled with a grind of his teeth, then turned to Y/N. "Go get that water. Reservoir is less than a mile north. There are signs." He hefted his radio and spoke into it. “I’m on my way.”

“Ten-four, over and out.”

And just as he had earlier that morning, Dean disappeared into the camp.

Great. Fucking awesome. Fourteen hours to go, and she had made no progress whatsoever. How had he come to live so detached? The Dean she remembered loved deeply, cared with all his heart. She hardly recognized him anymore.

Then again, she hardly recognized herself.

The ten-minute walk to the reservoir leveled her spiraling thoughts. She trudged back to the camp with both containers filled and delivered them to the mess hall, an old VFW. The staff there, two men and a woman, thanked her, but confusion clouded their suspicious stares and furrowed brows. They whispered inaudibly to one another as they shuffled back to the kitchen with the water, and one of the men threw a cautious glance at her over his shoulder.

Y/N stomped out of the mess hall and stopped in the center of a path. Residence tents. As she looked to the west, the sun lazily drifted towards the horizon as if to count down the hours she had left. Resolve spurred her onward once more, and she strode into the light.

As she neared the tents, a heated argument caught her ears, and she slowed to a quiet step. Hidden behind a stack of crates, Y/N leaned around the edge. Dean stood beside a woman restrained to a chair, and a group of five people crowded before them. Their impassioned debate continued, and she listened.

“Sir, she shot him in the back!” a man declared. “From the lookout tower. How is that not proof!”

“He was infected!” the woman hissed. “He’s been stalking people and killing them for weeks! All those missing people, he killed them. You’ll see! Nobody will die tonight, and you’ll thank me for it.”

“See!” another woman insisted. “She’s completely batshit insane. She’s infected, and she killed my son!”

“Shut the fuck up, Karen!” the bound woman bellowed. “I’ve had enough of your shit to last a lifetime! You’re the one who snuck your son away so he could leave the camp, and he came back infected!”

“Enough.”

Had she not seen his lips move, Y/N would not have believed Dean had spoken, for she had barely heard him. The group, though, cowered at his command. “We have no proof either way. We have no method to test for the virus anymore. The only way we’ll know for sure is if the killings stop. And if they do, you all owe Sasha an apology.”

“An apology?!” Sasha screeched. “They owe me their  _ lives _ .”

“Sasha,” Dean interjected, “You’re not doing yourself any favors. By all accounts, you look pretty fucking insane right now, and I have half a mind to put a bullet in your head just to be safe.”

Compelled, Y/N stepped out from behind the crates. “I have a better idea.”

All eyes landed on her, furious scowls and dark glares that threatened death. Karen pushed her way through the group as she spoke. “You’re the stray.”

Y/N glared at Dean. “My reputation precedes me, it seems,” she said as she turned back to Karen. “Dean, why don’t you tell them who I am?”

Astonished gasps rent the air as the camp members turned to Dean expectantly. He looked them each in the eye in turn, as if measuring them, calculating his odds. Then he spoke. “Y/N is a friend. From before.”

“Long before,” Y/N added much to Dean's chagrin.

“What’s your idea?” another man asked.

She smiled as she looked to her feet. “That is something I need to speak with Dean about. Privately.”

In the blink of an eye, Dean was at her side, rushing her from the tent. “Do you want to start a riot?”

“No, I just—”

“You just what? Thought you could save the day again? Thought you could rescue the whole goddamn world?!” Dean hissed. “I don’t know if you haven’t noticed, but Sam ain’t here. He failed! He followed through on your plan and—”

“I’m immune, Dean!”

His teeth clicked shut at that, and he reared back from her as if she had bitten him. “What do you mean?”

“It’s not like Sam. I don’t have demon blood in me. I killed a guy,” she began. “Sliced him open from stem to stern. He woke up one morning and started killing everyone in our group. I was out stalking a deer, but I heard the screams. He killed everyone, all seven of them in the camp. I got the jump on him with my field dressing knife.”

Dean’s eyes widened as her story unfolded. “How does that make you immune?”

“I gutted him. I meant to just stab him up through the ribs, but we fell, and I sliced his stomach wide open,” she explained as the memory flooded her mind’s eye. Bile rose to the back of her throat as she continued. “I was swimming in his blood. Infected blood.”

“But that doesn’t—” Dean started but then paused. “That’s one encounter.”

“I tested my theory multiple times,” Y/N stated. “I lost everyone I had left that day. Or at least, that's how I felt at that time. I figured that if I got infected, at least someone would eventually kill me and I’d be none the wiser. So I hunted. For infected people. I’ve come across hundreds, and not once did I get infected. I heard about this camp, so I set out hoping to find someone who could help me. That was weeks ago. Then yesterday, I learned you were here.”

Silence. Dean’s piercing green stare bored a hole straight into her soul, but he said nothing. She had laid bare to him the eternal struggle she had waged all those years but had buried deep within her heart. And there on the precipice of salvation, Y/N balanced precariously, unsteady as ever.

The ground fell from her feet as though ripped from beneath her. She had fallen, finally, after so many years of her high-wire act. But instead of plummeting to her death, Dean’s arms had enveloped her, smothered her. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, lifting her from the earth, and as the sunset, they lingered in their embrace.

“I missed you.”

A decade of tears surged forth and relinquished their grasp of her heart. “I missed you, too, Dean.”

He returned her to her feet, and straightened. His subtle smile vanished at the sight of her tears. “Why do I get the feeling I only have half the story?”

She wiped at her cheeks and sniffled back a breath. “Remember that time we went to the quarry to drink, and those kids showed up with weed?”

“Christ, that was… that was a lifetime ago,” Dean stuttered. “Why are you bringing this up?”

“I got drunk  _ and _ high, and you stayed sober for me,” she said. “You didn’t want us both to be so blasted we couldn’t protect each other.”

He smiled at that. “That’s… quite a memory you’ve got."

“I wish my memory weren’t so great,” she spat. “Makes it pretty fucking difficult.”

“What?” Dean asked. “What are you saying? What’s so difficult?”

“Forgetting.” She hesitated then but continued despite her reservations. “Damn near impossible to forget shit. Especially when you gave me so much worth remembering."

Dean scanned the camp as he closed the space between them. “Why would you want to forget those moments, Y/N? They’re all I ever had to keep me going.”

More tears. “Because I’m dying.”

The moment she feared had finally come to pass. But instead of the pity or the false hope she expected, nothing but understanding shined in his eyes. “The immunity is killing you.”

“Fate is a righteous cunt like that.”

He laughed then. Bless his fucking heart, Dean laughed his belly laugh, a sound she had not realized she had missed until she heard it for the first time in nearly a decade. She laughed with him, melody to his harmony. The last moment she had heard that laugh flashed before her eyes, but the memory was far from pleasant. No matter. New memories could be made. From that moment on, she vowed that she would hear Dean laugh every day for the rest of her life despite the bleakness of her chances. Even if that meant only a few more hours.

When their laughter subsided, Dean pressed closer and slipped his hand into her hair. His thumb rasped over her cheek, wiping away the last of her tears, and then he spoke. “I missed you something fierce, Y/N. Shit, I can feel it in my chest. I had no idea it was still buried there.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and drew him closer. “You’ll stay sober for me again, right? Keep my head above water, make sure I don’t take the dive?”

His wordless reply landed on her lips for a kiss that surpassed attraction, abandoned seduction, and even rejected romance. That connection, there in the elongating shadows of the camp, delved into the deepest depths of devotion, the furthest reaches of loyalty and commitment that the human spirit possessed. Like a beacon in the endless dark, Dean's promise shined.

_ Salvation _ .

"I swear, Y/N. On everything good left in this world, I swear you will live to see the sunrise and beyond."

* * *

Diffused light drummed against her eyelids, and Y/N squeezed them shut tight as she could. Too warm, so warm, the sun might melt her if she lay there much longer.

The  _ sun _ .

Y/N bolted upright, opened her eyes wide, and gaped. Late-morning sun filtered through a curtained window and angled across her pillow. A tiny motel desk sat beneath a dark hanging lamp, and a television stood on the dresser beside it. She lay in a large queen bed by herself, but the distinct scent of gun oil, whiskey, and heather told her everything she needed to know.

"Dean?"

The bathroom door opened, and he leaped to her side in two long steps. Red eyes and a sniffle explained his hiding. "Hey, sweetheart. How do you feel?"

She tore the sheets from her to find herself wearing a long Led Zeppelin t-shirt that did not belong to her. "I'm sweating my ass off." When she stood, she nearly doubled over, clenching her stomach. "Christ, I'm starving, too. What happened?"

He hesitated. Dean Winchester never hesitated. But something had happened, something that allowed Dean to question his conviction. "You're scaring me," she started. "What happened?"

He shook his head. "I had to call in a few favors," Dean said. "Nothing serious, I'm not gonna owe anyone. In fact, everyone alive owes you."

"It… it's…"

Dean nodded as he took her hand and said, "It worked. And by the looks of it…"

"I'm not dead."

A rare smile brightened Dean's face. "Give the lady a prize."

Well, shit. Dean Winchester had pulled through yet again. She hardly knew what to do. What to say. How do you thank a guy, your best friend, for saving your life and countless others for the umpteenth time?

Impulse. Instinct. Omniscience. Whatever it was, Y/N shoved aside all rational thought and committed. She leaped in faith, and Dean caught her, his teaming strength effortless. Once more, their lips met, and Y/N melted into him.

Poets and bards and angels wrote verses about such love, such fidelity. Volumes overflowed the lexicon of love stories but would forever be woefully incomplete without the adoration that had reached across time and space to reunite Dean and Y/N. Unfortunately, it would remain unwritten, lost to those forces that their love had once overpowered, for a fierce growl deep in her stomach interrupted their embrace.

They parted with laughter, a song growing more and more familiar to her with each passing second. Their foreheads rested easily upon one another, and their noses brushed as Y/N lived as vibrantly as she could, centered wholly at that moment.

But her stomach had other aims.

"Dear Lord, woman, when did you eat last?"

"Uh, before noon yesterday," she said. "Two days before that, I ran out of field rations on my way here."

Dean scowled at that. "We can't have that now, can we? My girl doesn't go hungry. What'll it be?"

She blinked, once, then twice. The thought of a hot meal of her choice bewildered her senses. But then, she realized the answer stood right in front of her.

"I could really go for a supreme pizza and a Margie."

Dean might as well have wept. His eyes and nose flushed red once more as he pulled her into a massive hug, laughing and crying as he clung to her so tightly, Y/N strained to breathe. But that sudden display of rare emotions passed as quickly as it came, and he spoke.

"That's my girl."


End file.
